June 17, 2010

Y-chromosome of Caravaggio

Scientists seeking to shed light on the mysterious death of the Italian artist in 1610 said they are "85% sure" they have found his bones thanks to carbon dating and DNA checks on remains excavated in Tuscany.

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Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio after the Lombardy town where he grew up, was a young man at the height of his career in Rome when he killed a man in a brawl in 1606, fleeing to find new patrons in Naples and then Malta, only to be thrown off the island two years later for more brawling.

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The team's next stop was the town of Caravaggio to compare DNA from the bones with local people. No descendents were found but families with the same surname were traced, giving samples which were 50 to 60% compatible with the bones.

A poster at dna-forums submitted this screenshot of the Merisi results:

I ran the visible markers over ysearch.org, which yielded a 2-step match with a E1b1b1 (tested) individual. The haplogroup predictor also yielded E1b1b as the most probable match.

3 comments:

It seems it is an Italian E-V13, close to many Germans and Western Europeans (also a Greek: Mendeles): on SMGF among 56 close to this haplotype there are three Italians: Tajer Binotto, Ruozzi and a Doria, I put on Ysearch, and probably from the Doria from Genoa.

(From Worldfamilies)Dienekes has posted on his blog the results captured from Russian television(www.1tv.ru) of some genetic data extracted from bones of Michelangelo Merisi(Caravaggio). He is clearly YDNA E1b1b2a (E-V13). He has the very rare DYS390=27 which makes the link with the Merisis tested for me certain beyond any doubt.This makes us think to the Italian E1b1b2a, that in other occasions I foundvery deeply rooted in my country and doubtful an its recent coming from Balkans.

Among other oddities of this haplogroup in Italy I found some E1b1b2a withDYS19=9: see Galliano (Ysearch E4U93). On YHRD there are two guys with DYS19=9tested by Antonia Picornell from Reggio Calabria, who differ from Galliano inDYS389=14-31 against 13-30, in DYS390=24 against 25 and in DYS385=14-17 and 14-18against 14-19. Being the other markers in the modal, I think it makes us thinkto my theory of the mutations around the modal, not being likely that very slow mutating markers mutate from many steps and the fast mutating ones remain the same.

In the E3b project of Haplozone this cluster is E1b1b1a2-B. There are six members, among themGalliano from SMGF I put on Ysearch as E4U93 (Cellier, Galliano, Junod, Ramondino, Schiffley,Willoughby): 3 are from Switzerland, 2 from Italy, one from Ireland. If we add the two Italian guys tested by Picornell who are on YHRD and a new Italian from SMGF (Villano), it is clear that Italians are the most part and we can hypothesize that this cluster was born in Italy.

Vadim Urasin (Geograficeskoe otnesenie nekotoryx vetvei filogeneticeskogo dreva E1b1b1a2-V13, in RJGG,2009, 17-22) says that this cluster was born during the 11th century BC. We don't know if thesedatations a la Klyosov are reliable (I personally have always doubted), but clearly this cluster demonstrates once more an irradiation from Italy to Switzerland and the British isles. The fact that we find it in Ireland should make us think to a more ancient time, probably of some thousands of years.

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